Page:The Mysterious Mother - Walpole (1781).djvu/27
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A TRAGEDY.
19
ACT the SECOND.
The SCENE continues.
Count EDMUND, FLORIAN.
EDMUND.
Doubt not, my friend; Time's pencil, hardships, war,
Some taste of pleasure too, have chas'd the bloom
Of ruddy comeliness, and stamp'd this face
With harsher lineaments, that well may mock
The prying of a mother's eye.—A mother,
Thro' whose firm nerves tumultuous instinct's flood
Ne'er gush'd with eager eloquence, to tell her,
This is your son! your heart's own voice proclaims him.
Doubt not, my friend; Time's pencil, hardships, war,
Some taste of pleasure too, have chas'd the bloom
Of ruddy comeliness, and stamp'd this face
With harsher lineaments, that well may mock
The prying of a mother's eye.—A mother,
Thro' whose firm nerves tumultuous instinct's flood
Ne'er gush'd with eager eloquence, to tell her,
This is your son! your heart's own voice proclaims him.
FLORIAN.
If not her love, my lord, suspect her hatred.
Those jarring passions spring from the same source:
Hate is distemper'd love.
If not her love, my lord, suspect her hatred.
Those jarring passions spring from the same source:
Hate is distemper'd love.
EDMUND.
Why should she hate me?
For that my opening passion's swelling ardour
Prompted congenial necessary joy,
Was that a cause?—Nor was she then so rigid.
No sanctified dissembler had possess'd
Her scar'd imagination, teaching her,
That holiness begins where nature ends.
No, Florian, she herself was woman then;
A sensual woman. Nor satiety,
Sickness and age, and virtue's frowardness,
Why should she hate me?
For that my opening passion's swelling ardour
Prompted congenial necessary joy,
Was that a cause?—Nor was she then so rigid.
No sanctified dissembler had possess'd
Her scar'd imagination, teaching her,
That holiness begins where nature ends.
No, Florian, she herself was woman then;
A sensual woman. Nor satiety,
Sickness and age, and virtue's frowardness,
Had